State Board of Education looks to change ways teachers are trained, evaluated and supported

View full sizeDave Murray | MLive.comState Board of Education members Kathleen Straus, D-Detroit, Marianne McGuire, D-Detroit, and John Austin, D-Ann Arbor, listened to concerns from teachers and union leaders at hearing in Grand Rapids last year.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – State Board of Education members are calling for changes to the way teachers are trained, evaluated and supported as part a wide-ranging list of goals and legislative priorities.

Board members released the document this week, outlining efforts to work on changes to school financing, student achievement and early childhood efforts.

“We need to provide more support to our teachers, not just change them out and making reforms,” said board President John Austin, D-Ann Arbor, on Monday.

“They need positive reinforcement. I think of us as one hand clapping. We’re asking for high expectations and rigor. But on the other hand, we’re not coming through with investing in professional development and other resources.”

The eight-member board is dominated by Democrats, but the goals aren’t too far from what Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed, or from some of the bills working through the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

One key difference: There is no mention of the school choice agenda aggressively sought by Republicans, and an issue that last year promoted three factions of the state Board to issue dueling statements of support or opposition.

The document also doesn’t mention recent efforts from some House Republicans to change the state’s graduation requirements to replace algebra 2 and foreign language with career technology class options – moves the state board loudly opposes.

Focusing on teachers, board members want to see changes to teacher certification, but also to the process leading up to that point.

Members want to see increased requirements for admission to teacher preparation programs, admission to student teaching.

The board also wants to see alternative paths to certification for teachers and administrators, allowing people leave other professions to come into the classroom.

“We want to push to make sure everyone coming out of an education program has experience with technology and special education,” he said. “We can’t allow teaching to be thought of as a second-tier profession, and education programs viewed as an easy path. We want them to be thought of a professional program like a business school or law school.”

Austin said the board is supportive of the work of the Michigan Council on Educator Effectiveness, which is developing a plan to evaluate teachers based on multiple measures including student growth.

But he said the system has to be about helping teachers get better, including creating master teachers that can be better compensated so they stay in the classroom and serve as mentors to newly hired educators.

Austin said North Carolina has offered teachers incentives to earn National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification. He said the state has 18,000 achieving the credential, while Michigan has less than 400.

He said Michigan already has legislative requirements for mentoring and professional development for new teachers, but the state Education Department doesn’t have enough staff or funding to make sure districts are following through.

“We’ve put all this pressure on teachers to improve, but we haven’t matched that with the investment to help them,” he said.

Austin said the state board’s goals aren’t too far from what Gov. Snyder and the GOP-dominated Legislature have worked toward, though his members differ on some aspects of parental choice plans.

He said board members wanted to see more quality assurance measures in place before adding new charter schools and “cyber” charter schools. Bills signed into law this year put state universities in charge of the application process to open new schools.

Austin said the next big push will be to look at new ways of funding schools, saying all the reforms set in place during the last two years won’t work unless there is enough money to carry them through.

Snyder has said he want so make overhauling school financing a priority in the next year.

“It’s been 20 years since Proposal A, and it’s time to take another look at how we invest in education as a state,” he said.